Monday, June 30, 2008

He calls the experiment woo woo and declines to participate in the experiment even though he was on skeptiko. This is not the first time he has decline to participate for example he has also decline to see the raw results of Dr. Gary Schwartz and Dr.Julie Beischel's work on mental mediums.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Here's more evidence to show that meditation can change the physical structure of our brains. So it appears that mental practice can change the brain.

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don't. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input. In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That's intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age. "Our data suggest that meditation practice can promote cortical plasticity in adults in areas important for cognitive and emotional processing and well-being," says Sara Lazar, leader of the study and a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. "These findings are consistent with other studies that demonstrated increased thickness of music areas in the brains of musicians, and visual and motor areas in the brains of jugglers. In other words, the structure of an adult brain can change in response to repeated practice." The researchers compared brain scans of 20 experienced meditators with those of 15 nonmeditators. Four of the former taught meditation or yoga, but they were not monks living in seclusion. The rest worked in careers such as law, health care, and journalism. All the participants were white. During scanning, the meditators meditated; the others just relaxed and thought about whatever they wanted. Meditators did Buddhist "insight meditation," which focuses on whatever is there, like noise or body sensations.

It doesn't involve "om," other mantras, or chanting. "The goal is to pay attention to sensory experience, rather than to your thoughts about the sensory experience," Lazar explains. "For example, if you suddenly hear a noise, you just listen to it rather than thinking about it. If your leg falls asleep, you just notice the physical sensations. If nothing is there, you pay attention to your breathing.

A photograph, which has captured a dark figure taken in the foreboding underground Crypt at Oxford Castle Unlocked, has revealed the paranormal does exist and confirms beliefs that the Castle is haunted. The photograph was taken on Friday 16 May by a member of the public at a ghost hunt organised by Fright Nights, the UK's leading ghost hunt specialist. The brave ghost hunter, who was alone in the Crypt at the time, took the photograph with his digital camera. Keiron Brown from Alton in Hampshire was astonished to see the dark shadow of a figure at the end of the corridor leading into the Crypt when he looked at the images on his computer after the event. The astounding photograph has since been analysed by experts at Fright Nights and at Oxford Castle Unlocked. Martin Jeffrey, Director of Fright Nights stated â€œWe were amazed by this photograph. Our analysts have shown that the figure is jet black and unusually not lit up by the flash, whereas the side walls and the wall behind it have visible lighting caused by the flash. We can also confirm that the figure is facing the camera and seems to have some form of hood, head dress or blindfold. We know that the Crypt was used for the storing of criminals especially those waiting execution, so the figure fits perfectly within the history of the Castleâ€. Fright Nights were granted exclusive use of Oxford Castle Unlocked in which to hold overnight paranormal investigations for the public since early 2007. The visitor attraction is thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country.

Throughout its dark history, the Castle has served time as a royal residence, a centre of justice and as the county Gaol, hidden from public view behind impenetrable 5 metre high stones walls until its closure in 1996. Martin continued, â€œThis photograph tops off a fantastic eighteen months of ghost hunting events at Oxford Castle Unlocked. We have had continual paranormal activity throughout the Castle that has inspired attendees to return over and over again.

An icy, unknown world might lurk in the distant reaches of our solar system beyond the orbit of Pluto, according to a new computer model. The hidden world — thought to be much bigger than Pluto based on the model — could explain unusual features of the Kuiper Belt, a region of space beyond Neptune littered with icy and rocky bodies. Its existence would satisfy the long-held hopes and hypotheses for a "Planet X" envisioned by scientists and sci-fi buffs alike. "Although the search for a distant planet in the solar system is old, it is far from over," said study team member Patryk Lykawka of Kobe University in Japan. The model, created by Lykawka and Kobe University colleague Tadashi Mukai, is detailed in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal. If the new world is confirmed, it would not be technically a planet. Under a controversial new definition adopted by the International Astronomical Union last week, it would instead be the largest known "plutoid." The Kuiper Belt contains many peculiar features that can't be explained by standard solar system models. One is the highly irregular orbits of some of the belt's members. The most famous is Sedna, a rocky object located three times farther from the sun than Pluto.

Sedna takes 12,000 years to travel once around the sun, and its orbit ranges from 80 to 100 astronomical units. One AU is equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun. According to the model, Sedna and other Kuiper Belt oddities could be explained by a world 30 to 70 percent as massive as Earth orbiting between 100 AU and 200 AU from the sun.

The supernatural frogs falling from the sky, mysterious airships, spontaneous human combustion... it all fascinated Charles Fort, whose appetite for the paranormal lives on today in sci-fi, conspiracy theories and that quirky chronicle of the unknown, the Fortean Times. No one knew what to make of The Book of the Damned, which appeared in bookshops across America in January, 1920. At Brentano's Bookstore on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the cardboard cartons containing it had arrived from the publishers Boni & Liveright during the Christmas rush. They were quickly pushed into the storeroom with other new titles, to make room for the illustrated children's picture books and popular romance novels that were displayed as ideal gifts. The cover price was one dollar. It was a fat little volume covered in bright red fabric and adorned with neat gold stamping: the title, The Book of the Damned, the author's name, 'Charles Fort', and a pretty decoration of a planet spinning merrily amid a cluster of stars. On the dust jacket was an endorsement from the novelist Theodore Dreiser - 'It is wonderful'- and a promise of what was inside: 'In this amazing book - the result of 12 years of patient research - the author presents a mass of evidence that has hitherto been ignored or distorted by scientists... Things that [seem] incredible support the author's argument, which he develops with strong touches of sardonic humor and flashes of sheer poetic insight.' Nothing else identified the contents as fantasy, religion, science, or philosophy. The attention-grabbing title presented an arresting mystery, and the modest paper wrapper made it all the more beguiling: simple block letters and swirling grey and pink shapes suggesting planets, surging lava, and a solar eclipse.

Customers stopped, picked up the book and turned it over in their hands. With sidelong glances, they cracked the cover to peer inside. They wondered if the author was promising immorality or criminality, hedonism or atheism - in 1920, it was possible to find any of those subjects between the covers of a new book.

Monday, June 16, 2008

It is sometimes claimed that a drug called Ketamine can produce all features of the near death experience.

Here's my Rebuttal

There is some big differences between ketamine and near death experiences such as you need lots of brain activity for ketamine to work while people with very little still have near death experiences some report accurate information and see things while outside their body some even from very far distances away.

Another difference is too ketamine experiences are often frightening. Unlike the vast majority of near death experiences.

Another argument

DMT Chemicals Causing NDEs

DMT does not account for the Veridical Elements of the NDE, nor the amazing structure of many NDEs, accourding to the book DMT: The Spiritual Molecule, it may act as an initial NDE trigger, but cannot make up for the entire experience, Veridical Elements and all, in addition to the pesky little fact that within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest, the brain waves go flat, and even if they were sufficient (which they are not), the brain cannot produce images in this state, and even if it could, you couldn't remember them.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Doubt Cast on Theory that Magnetic Fields Spark Religious Feelings: Studies showing that magnetic stimulation of the brain induces spiritual experiences are being questioned by researchers who cannot reproduce key results. We have reported in the past that in a study by Michael Persinger 80% of participants who wore helmets that targeted their temporal lobes with weak magnetic fields, of roughly the same strength as those generated by a computer monitor, felt an unexplained presence in the room. Persinger suggested that magnetism causes bursts of electrical activity in the temporal lobes of the brain, and he linked this to the spiritual experiences.

Now a group of Swedish researchers have repeated his work, with one crucial difference. They ensured that neither the participants nor the experimenters interacting with them had any idea who was being exposed to the magnetic fields, a “double-blind” protocol. In contrast to the results from Persinger and others, the team found that the magnetism had no discernable effects.

The libet experiments defy easy explanation he did experiments where he stimulated the finger area of one cortex and also the same finger the otherside and basicially what he found was that direct cortical stimulation if it resulted in gamma synchrony for 500 milliseconds resulted in consciousness at the end of half a second. But if he stimulated the finger and got a invoke potential followed by 500 milliseconds it was found at the time of the invoke potential. He did other studies too with peramic stimulation which basicially said that if you have to invoke potential but don't continue with the gamma synchrony for the full time their is no conscious experience so it appears if somebody knows brain,body or somebody knows rather or not this is going to continue. Libet concluded that their was backtime time referral for subjective experience.

Libbet was interested in how neuronal potentials were connected to consciousness. While performing operations on test subjects, who were undergoing brain surgery to treat epilepsy, he established a simple procedure. He found the place in either hemisphere that stimulated the subject's hand as if they were being shocked with a mild electrical current. He then taped an electrode to both hands, and, using a computer and robot, proceeded to stimulate one of those places in the brain, and the opposite hand to the one which the hemisphere in question controlled. So, if he stimulated the part of the brain that made the right hand tingle, he directly stimulated the left hand. These he did at exactly the same time, again, using the computer and robot to control timing. He would then ask the subjects which one they felt first. The subject would not know which was which thanks to the experimental design, and he did confirm that qualitatively, the subjects could detect no difference in the feelings.

He expected to find that the subject felt the brain stimulation first, since the electrical current that was producing it didn't have to travel up the arm and spinal cord. What he instead discovered is that subjects uniformly felt the direct hand stimulation first. He in fact found that this would be the case up to about a quarter of a second delay between the brain stimulation and the direct hand stimulation. Consider this carefully and I think you'll see why it's a problem for materialists. If it stumps you, I'll provide further explanation. Anyway, at least some dualist accounts would make this prediction, while no materialist account would.

Another area of evidence that is difficult to explain by physicalism is Animal navigation, for instance, is a clear case. Consider the homing pigeon for a moment. I don't recall the exact reference, but there was an English biologist who tackled the question of how a homing pigeon homes. For the experiment, he did all kinds of unusual things to the homing pigeons. He trained them to home to a carefully controlled laboratory setting, and then changed all kinds of things (like scent and ambient sounds well above and below the threshold of human hearing). He put them in windowless boxes in a van and drove them around in a highly circuitous route to try to confuse them. Under all such conditions, they homed perfectly.

Monday, June 9, 2008

I am still 90 percent certain their is an afterlife not 100 percent it's always good to leave a little room for doubt. The evidence gives a lot of hope to everyone and to those who are grieving skeptics claim it's wishfulment they claim this without researching and investigating the evidence first.

An international group of radio astronomers has found an unexpected morphology in the most distant radio quasar ever. This was done using the world's most sensitive network of radio telescopes called the European VLBI Network (EVN). The results of their discovery are published in the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal on 5 June. Quasars are the most powerful 'engines' in the Universe. Observed with a radio telescope they look like stars, but they are much farther away from Earth. Because they are so powerful, their light can be seen by modern telescopes from distances comparable with the size of the Universe. The observation of the newly found quasar was conducted with ten radio telescopes in Europe (including the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands), China and South Africa, at the frequency of 1.6 GHz (wavelength of 18 cm). The quasar, called J1427+3312, can be seen in the image. It shows a double morphology and the components are about 480 light years apart. This kind of double morphology, combined with a steep radio spectrum, is typical for young radio sources. What makes the quasar in the picture so interesting is its extremely distant location. It is so far away from our Galaxy that it takes the light it emits more than 90% of the age of the Universe to reach us. In other words, what we see corresponds to the time when the Universe was less than 10% of its present age. Being so distant, the quasar J1427+3312 is located relatively close to the inner edge of the so called Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) - the cosmological 'Dark Ages'. In a sense, the EoR is responsible for the appearance and composition of the Universe we live in - the variety of galaxies, stars and, ultimately, planets. The reionisation is one of the most tantalizing subjects for investigations with the next generation of radio telescopes, LOFAR and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

Currently Dutch efforts in radio astronomy focus largely on the implementation of LOFAR and SKA. The quasar J1427+3312, in the words of Leonid Gurvits, Senior Astronomer at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE, Dwingeloo, the Netherlands), is "a powerful lighthouse that happens to be located at the place where we want to light up surroundings in search for something terribly important; one day, with new radio telescopes, we will 'use' this lighthouse as a handy tool in the search for EoR signatures.

Carl Wickland reincarnationDr. Carl A. Wickland wrote, The theory of reincarnation can undoubtedly be traced to early stages of mankind when departed spirits took possession of the bodies of sensitive individuals and lived and acted through them, thus seemingly indicating reincarnation. But in reality this was only spirit obsession or possession. (See p.351) Sections on obsession and possession in theosophy and Blavatsky teachings in Thirty Years Among the Dead, 1924.It must be remembered that even Madam Blavatsky tried to return after her passing over to the spirit world. On finding that she could not will herself or choose to return to earth as she had taught in her theory of re-incarnation, Blavatsky's work in the spirit world became rescuing spirits trapped in the darkness who were only looking to return to earth life and in so doing found themselves lost or, obsessing or possessing another's physical body. Putting right her erroneous earth teachings, Blavatsky helped to guide lost spirits into Spiritualistic 'rescue circles' here on earth, to help them find the light again and be able to continue their progression into the higher spirit world.

It�s interesting to note now how prevalent the belief in reincarnation is gaining momentum in the west. Only twenty years ago this was considered a weirdly bizarre, and foreign concept. Returning in physical form? Our consciousness coming back into another body? That�s something those strange folk from the east believe in. Now it�s accepted and touted in the most conformist circles as truth! People now will casually and commonly refer to their past lives as if there was nothing extraordinary about this at all. Some have made mention of the unbelievable number of famous, notable, and special people who being laid claim to. Few say they were just an ordinary farmer who died plowing the field one fateful afternoon. Most reincarnationists are certain their past lives will reveal their past lives as Queens, Priests, Shamans, or Pirates. Why their spirit would return as an ordinary person draws little reflective rigor.

I don�t buy it personally. I think reincarnation is another blast of panacea propaganda to assuage the guilt of the now obvious global (read western here) upper class.

Reincarnation theory evolved as a means to explain why some people are born into despair and others are born into privilege. It was really a dumbing down of the ancient and sacred Brahminic spiritual teachings. Embraced with enthusiasm by the then aristocratic class, it also effectively cemented one�s birth class for a lifetime. Once an untouchable, always an untouchable. The greatest appeal of all was that it served too to explain the why. You were obviously less than honourable in your past life. It was a perfectly packaged and circular rationalization.

Now we see people in the west embracing it en mass with a sigh of relief. People exclaim with excitement, �How else can you explain why some people are born into horrible conditions on the planet while (read we here) others are born into such abundance?� Surely this explains such inequities! Reincarnationists as usual however again fail to really think this theory through. Did the spirit world make the earth peoples so unequal? Did the spirit world create such inequities as we see between the haves and the have-not on the planet? I doubt it.

I think if you�re really honest with yourself you�ll agree that�s an earth plane arrangement. We do that. We construct an earthly existence of haves and have nots. We like that. We�re uncomfortable that we like that so we construct these ridiculous and rather banal explanations for these inequities. If it�s not the Devil making us do a nasty, it�s the laws of the universe at fault.

If we are to fully grow spiritually we must be accountable for our choices. We choose to support inequality, to be selfish, and determinedly ignorant. Reincarnation is rubbish and before you embrace this theory with relief in your selfish soul, give some serious thought as to why it holds such appeal. Truth is simple but it�s not easy. You are incarnated in physical form once, and yes you will leave it and not return. You are here to experience and to create not to waste your gifts on touting foolish rationalizations and apologies.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

A song by acdc called who made who got me thinking I mean think about life was there someone who turned the screw? I would say their is god[cosmic consciousness]. We have to ask ourselves had did we get here? The big bang theory says we came from the void but how can something come from nothing? Of course nothing can coming from nothing materialists have propose that two universes called branes colliding with eachother causing a big explosion called the big bang. However there is a big problem and that is the universe looks to be very fined tuned.

Asteroid deflection is one of those topics that draws an eclectic mix of serious NASA engineers, professors, and crazy people. To help sort through decades of scientific research and a century of science fiction, Iowa State university professor Bong Wie is establishing the first-ever Asteroid Deflection Research Center. The Center will look at all available technologies that could be deployed to some day keep a space rock from slamming into the Earth and ending civilization. "As of 2008, there is no consensus among professionals which approach or technology can be actually used when we have to use it," Wie told Wired.com. "So, therefore, we created this center to bring the experts from around the world together to [undertake] open-minded technical study." Scientists believe the Earth has been hit several times by asteroids large enough to radically alter the planet. Sixty-five million years ago, a 6-mile-wide asteroid struck the Yucatan peninsula creating an enormous crater and probably leading to the extinction of most life on Earth at the time, including the dinosaurs. More recently, an 50-meter asteroid exploded just above the ground in Siberia with the force of 500 atomic bombs, leveling trees for miles around. Given the high stakes, Wie considers developing a strategy to push an asteroid off a collision path with Earth to be an underaddressed problem. "No one is taking any responsibility for this problem," Wie said. Still, in recent years, the threat from so-called near-Earth objects has received increasing scrutiny. NASA delivered a 137-page report to Congress on detecting and deflecting the objects, and the European Space Agency has planned a mission to intercept and impact an asteroid.

The so-called Don Quijote mission plan is animated in the video. The NASA report summarizes the current deflection strategies to stop "potentially hazardous objects": A wide range of deflection options were considered and evaluated. Perhaps the simplest of these is the kinetic impactor, where a spacecraft is collided with the PHO to change its orbit so that the object misses Earth.

There is a big problem in the skeptical community. There is rampant obscuration of the truth by prominent skeptics who have misled masses of people. Skeptics often say that believers in the paranormal have been fooled by charlatans but it is the skeptics who have been fooled by prominent members of their community who seem to be more interested in winning the debate than in illuminating the truth.

The Director, Russell Barnes, confirmed that he too was not interested in evidence. The film he was making was another Dawkins polemic.

I said to Russell, "If you’re treating telepathy as an irrational belief, surely evidence about whether it exists or not is essential for the discussion. If telepathy occurs, it’s not irrational to believe in it. I thought that’s what we were going to talk about. I made it clear from the outset that I wasn’t interested in taking part in another low grade debunking exercise."

"A meta-analysis of the database, published in 1989, examined 800 experiments by more than 60 researchers over the preceding 30 years. The effect size was found to be very small, but remarkably consistent, resulting in an overall statistical deviation of approximately 15 standard errors from a chance effect. The probability that the observed effect was actually zero (i.e., no psi) was less than one part in a trillion, verifying that human consciousness can indeed affect the behavior of a random physical system."

That's 800 experiments by more than 60 researchers over the preceding 30 years demonstrating odds of a trillion to one in favor of psychokenesis being real.

Michael Prescott discusses rampant innacuracy in just a chapter of a book by Randi.

http://www.skepticalinvestigations.o...cott_Randi.htm

research of the skeptics on Dr. Susan Blackmore

Skeptical Investigations - Investigating the Skeptics - Anomalistics - Research of the Skeptics

This is not parapsychology really but might be interesting with regards to the presentiment experiment, even if it's not the same.

It's nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur.And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake.When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world.Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.Changizi now says it's our visual system that has evolved to compensate for neural delays, generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future.

My comments- first premonitions don't happen to everyone also it appears premontions can happen hours before a premonition occurs. Let's not also forget if these are optical illusions why do they come true.

Here's something interesting the phenomena known at Quantum Entanglement looks to be more robust than ever.

Quantum entanglement stronger than suspected

Pairs of photons linked by the weird quantum effect of entanglement can pass through sheets of metal without the entanglement being destroyed. The finding means the quantum linking of particles is far more robust than scientists thought and could help them develop new ways of making quantum computers.

Scientists think quantum computers could be hugely powerful because of their ability to perform many calculations at once, instead of doing one after another like regular computers.

When photons are entangled, the physical properties of one are intimately linked to the other. Measuring the properties of one will instantly tell you the properties of the other. But many scientists believed entanglement broke down if the photons ever interacted with anything.

Now, Erwin Altewischer and his team at Leiden University in the Netherlands have shown this is not true. They used a crystal to split photons into pairs of lower energy photons with different and entangled polarisations. They then fired these entangled photons at gold sheets thick enough to block light.Surface waves

The sheets were peppered with holes 200 nanometres wide. Although the holes were too small for light to squeeze through, Altewischer found the photons created waves of electrons on the gold surface called plasmons that passed through the holes and re-emitted the photons on the other side. Measurements showed that the emitted photons were still entangled.

"It's a good omen, because it's saying quantum entanglement can survive when you might not expect it to," says Bill Barnes, a photonics expert at the University of Exeter. "If they can survive this, what else can they survive?"

Altewischer says the fact that the entanglement is preserved, even when the light is converted into electron waves, means it could be used to develop new types of quantum computer or quantum cryptography systems.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

First I want to make clear in my opinion computers are not conscious and many scientists agree with me such as John Searle, Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose etc.]

Evidence against classical neurocomputation are as follows:

The major difficulties it has with unconscious-to-conscious transitions, binding, synchrony, subjectivity.

To bridge that gap though Stuart Hameroff suggests that the brain is both a neurocomputer and quantum computer.

Orch OR and neurocomputation are compatible and question whether neurocomputation alone can physiologically account for coherent gamma synchrony EEG, a candidate for the neural correlate of consciousness.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/cogsci.htm

The theory of orch or does has a interesting twist to it if proven true one of the conseguences would be

1. Interconnectiondness among living beings in the universe: entanglement2. Cosmic Intelligence/Platonic values in touch with our conscious perceptions and choices Penrose non-computable effect.3. Conscious existence after death Soul: Quantum information in spacetime geometry where that information released by the microtubles into space gets entanglment causing a dreamlike afterlife.

A view of the ground underneath NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander adds to evidence that descent thrusters dispersed overlying soil and exposed a harder substrate that may be ice. The image received Friday night from the spacecraft's Robotic Arm Camera shows patches of smooth and level surfaces beneath the thrusters. "This suggests we have an ice table under a thin layer of loose soil," said the lead scientist for the Robotic Arm Camera, Horst Uwe Keller of Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany. "We were expecting to find ice within two to six inches of the surface," said Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, principal investigator for Phoenix. "The thrusters have excavated two to six inches and, sure enough, we see something that looks like ice. It's not impossible that it's something else, but our leading interpretation is ice." The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

, and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.